Are Apple and IBM Holding Back the Operating System That Will Obsolete Their Current Products?

By Frederic E. Davis

The Party Line holds that Taligent is only in the concept stage and
that widespread implementation is years away. In fact, just the
opposite is true.

It's reminiscent of a classic Greek tragedy. A child is born, destined
to kill its father and commit even more unspeakable acts against its
mother. The parents love their child and are unwilling to kill it, so
they imprison it in a secret dungeon. Despite its mistreatment, the
child grows stronger, even more intent on committing its destined
crimes.

The parents are Apple and IBM. The child is Taligent, a company formed
by the two in 1991 to produce a new operating system called Pink.
Pink's destiny: to eventually destroy the existing technologies of
both parent companies - Macintosh and OS/2.

In the meantime, IBM and Apple keep their monstrous child chained and
bound deep in the dungeons of Silicon Valley - where an ever-growing
number of programmers churn out lines and lines of top-secret code.

While Apple and IBM use all their resources to keep Taligent hidden
from public view, subterfuge is the last thing on arch-rival
Microsoft's mind. Instead, the Microsoft megaphones are blaring
"Windows Everywhere!" in a bid for global computer domination.

While Microsoft garners the support of software developers for future
versions of Windows, Apple and IBM's secrecy about Taligent is driving
away developers and potential users. But both Apple and IBM fear that
disclosing the awesome power of the Pink system could steer even more
users and developers away from Macintosh and OS/2.

The naked truth is that Pink makes the Macintosh and OS/2 obsolete. If
Taligent's efforts succeed, most of Apple's $8-billion-per-year
revenue stream will be imperiled, which currently comes from the
Macintosh. IBM executives - the ones still remaining, at least -
already acknowledge that OS/2, despite all their vigorous support,
also will be eclipsed by Taligent.

Because the companies have so much to lose, they've created The Big
Lie. The Big Lie holds that Taligent is only in the concept stage and
that any widespread implementation is years away. In fact, just the
opposite is true. In the summer of 1991, when Apple and IBM shocked
the computer industry with their historic alliance, Apple CEO John
Sculley bragged that Apple had already written 1.5 million lines of
Pink code. If 1.5 million lines were written two years ago, how many
exist today? A next- generation operating system might require
somewhere between 2 and 3 million lines of code, so it seems as if
Pink would be pretty near completion.

To understand just how far Taligent has advanced, it's important to
understand why it was conceived in the first place. Most of today's
operating systems, including DOS, Unix, and OS/2, are based on twenty-
year-old technology created for mainframes and minicomputers. The
Macintosh represented the first major commercial break from this
tradition by developing ideas from Xerox PARC and other research labs
into products that were marketed in 1984. But even Macintosh
technology is more than ten years old.

During the last half of the 1980s, while most of the microcomputer
industry was cashing in on the pre-existing design of the IBM PC and
devoting shockingly little money to research and development, Apple
poured hundreds of millions of dollars into fundamental research. Much
of Apple's research centered on this basic theme: Given what we know
now about the Macintosh, what would we do if we had it all to do over
again? This strategy, although it appeared risky at the time,
ultimately proved correct.

By 1990, the fruits of Apple's investment in research and development
and new personnel (including a whole new crop of whiz kids just out of
high school) began to pay off big. The results were new multimedia
technologies, user interface designs, and operating systems technology
that were superior to anything on the market at the time.

Pink represents a new breed of object-oriented operating system, which
uses standardized parts - or objects - to make it easier for
programmers to put together applications. These kinds of systems save
time and money on development, and they can be easily upgraded and
enhanced. Although other operating systems make some use of
object-oriented programming, those in the know say that Pink is the
first system completely designed with object orientation. Furthermore,
Pink seems to be in rather good shape. Taligent has been hiring more
people and has recently moved to larger headquarters in
Cupertino,
California.

Fred Davis is a columnist and contributing editor for Window Sources, and former editor in chief of MacUser and A+ magazines.